School of Lies co-creator Ishani Banerjee reveals writers on OTT are underpaid

A month ago just days after her thriller series School of Lies dropped online Ishani Banerjee was taken by the anxiety of whether it would find its audience She was certain a slowburn like the DisneyHotstar offering would take time in finding its life Today the shows cocreator and writer sounds upbeat The overpouring love and acclaim for her work has left her feeling surprised validated and hopefulAll the frustration and anger that I had before the show has faded away The show is making a splash with several publications calling it one of the best series of the year The idea was to push the boundaries and I feel enthusiastic seeing the audience wants that too she smiles Much like her show Banerjeersquos journey in Bollywood has been unrushed Starting with a terrific debut in director Hansal Mehtas 2015 drama Aligarh the writer took her time to find her place and pace in the industry She remained undeterred in the face of delays and rejections perhaps because she was focused on finding her voice as a storyteller which contradicted her habits as a viewer ldquoI grew up on a typical Bollywood dietrdquo she saysIn an interview with Midday Banerjee reflects on her eightyearlong journey her inner battles as a writer and her expectations from the industry for herself and fellow writersSomething unconventional is expected of you today but when you sit to write are you also conscious of writing a story thatrsquos not runofthemill or would you say unconventional narratives come naturally to youIt is the latter because you never start a process saying lsquoI will do this I wonrsquot do thatrsquo The need to deep dive and bring nuance is inherent to me now I believe the more inherent it is the better your writing becomes Itrsquos anyway quite a task to write because half of the time you are battling with the journey your story has to take You have to bring in dramatic points and write a gripping story at the end of the day It canrsquot be a snoozefest At the same time you want to tell a story that also affects viewersThe journey from Aligarh to School of Lies has been long with gaps in between Has it been difficult to stick to your belief in certain kinds of stories and storytellingItrsquos been extremely difficult When you are trying to work with the kind of intensity I strive to work with there are numerous challenges because you have very little support Creatively I am stretched out There are different kinds of shows that are offered to me I know if I do them I will probably earn much more I will have hit franchises under my belt And I donrsquot have anything against those kinds of shows But when one is trying to create a body of work which is very original when one has a certain kind of approach to writing and you are trying to live with a sense of selfawareness and honesty in a world which is becoming absurd it can get very lonelyWhen people would compliment me for School of Lies my anxiety would say lsquoBut who is watching itrsquo Of course a lot of people have watched School of Lies Therersquos been acceptance which is heartening But going forward I want to tell stories that have a more entertaining value so they have a bigger audience but at the same time maintain a certain standard of writing Thatrsquos a mammoth task At times I become unkind to myself I donrsquot know why I want to take that pressure laughs But when a stranger comes and tells me that they watched my show and felt cathartic itrsquos actually me who has a catharsis hearing that because we made it for this reactionBeginning with a criticallyacclaimed film and then waiting for seven years to have your next work Human 2022 series did you feel lost during that timeI wrote a lot between Aligarh and Human In fact I finished Despatch my upcoming film even before I worked on Human But then there were projects that fell apart in the middle But in my mind I just wanted to improve my craft moving from one project to another whether they saw the light of day or not That depends on the producers But I never felt lost because I realised all of this would take timeAlso when it comes to working on OTT itrsquos important to know that the development stage is the toughest and the longest You get the least paid during this stage which is funny because a writer does the most amount of work during this time So it makes no sense Till this condition remains itrsquos very difficult for writers to prosper in this country You start getting money only when the project gets greenlit and you start writing the screenplay But a whole year goes into developing a project where you are developing the pilot a platform takes twothree months to read it then contracts are made Itrsquos a long processDuring that process to make your living you have to write twothree things A writer becomes creatively exhausted So how is one supposed to remain creatively charged and deliver while struggling to pay billsImagine this therersquos a strike going on in the West and we havenrsquot even monetised the development stage I have seen junior writers who are asked to write for free They are paid a meagre token money and told they would be paid when the project is greenlit These are really bad times You get the most paid when principal photography of a project begins But how does that matter when the writing is already doneIn your experience have writers tried taking up this glaring disparity with the streamers Do you think a united front on this level is neededWe keep having these conversations But a united front by the writers will only be realised when all of them say they wouldnrsquot sign a project without these aspects Today I am in a position to put my foot down and one can only hope that every writer who can does that when a mass movement seems difficult When I get writers in my writers room I make sure they are paid even for the pointers they write of a story One needs to keep pushing Now that I have a couple of projects under my name I try to push for these things in my contracts I try to do it for junior writers working with meYou mention you grew up on a typical Bollywood diet So how did Aligarh become your first story How did you realise that your stories as a writer would be far removed from what one describes mainstreamI donrsquot really know what was the starting point because I never thought I would write movies Growing up my only relationship with movies was as a viewer I was born and raised in Jamshedpur In the lsquo90s there wasnrsquot a single decent cinema hall where a family could go and watch movies So going to the theatres wasnrsquot an option for us I used to watch a lot of mainstream Bollywood films on TV or VCRBut it was when I went to Delhi in 2007 for graduation in literature my world opened up to international cinema I watched David Lynch Martin Scorsese German cinema Iranian films These films became an escape for me They used to make me cry laugh angry These feelings became precious to meI have always maintained that Aligarh was a fluke While I was working in Delhi I wrote an email to Hansal sir after watching Shahid because I was moved by it In the mail I also mentioned my story of Aligarh He answered it There we began developing it At that time I didnrsquot even know what a final draft meant I didnrsquot know anything about screenwriting I used to write but those were just stories I got incredibly luckyBut because I got lucky I also felt guilty seeing talented writers around me working hard and struggling to get their stories out So I felt that because I got this opportunity I should work very hard A project can be a fluke but your entire life canrsquot be just thatWhen I came to Mumbai for Aligarh I realised how difficult as well as magical it is to make movies I began to gravitate towards films where feeling something was everything The feeling a film leaves you with when you are sitting in silence long after the film has ended that became crucial for me So I decided I wanted to do work which leaves one with that feeling be it of joy or despair Also post Aligarh I started watching a lot of Mrinal Sen Satyajit Ray films These rich narratives left a deep impact on me and became instrumental in shaping my voiceWhile one can expect Despatch headlined by Manoj Bajpayee to be your next release are there things you are currently working onI am working on a lot of different stuff One is a black comedy other is a sciencefiction story My mind is organically gravitating towards stories that I have never attempted before So therersquos also a romantic thriller that I am developing